Brain Waves Blog

You scour social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for updates about your institution. And you receive Google alerts when you’re mentioned in the news. But are you keeping up with Reddit?  

With graduations across the country this spring, universities gained thousands of new alumni. But as soon as students graduate and leave campus, it becomes harder to engage with them and continue to build a relationship. One of the keys to connecting with new alumni is to not wait until they’ve graduated, but to engage with them before they become alumni. The more engaged and connected students are to an institution, the more likely they are to become engaged alumni. This speaks to Dr. Jay Le Roux Dillon’s idea of alumni identity—the measure of how deeply a graduate associates their own self-identity with their alma mater. The closer alumni feel to your institution, the more they’ll feel compelled to give—both time and money.

In higher ed, reputation is an institution’s number one priority. The problem is, it’s not totally in your hands. Public perception is reality and anyone who has an opinion can share it online for the world to see. There’s a trust problem in our country, especially in higher education.

If we asked you to define your brand right now, could you? Would your response be based on your gut or tangible evidence? If you can't, did you just panic a little bit? Don't worry; you're certainly not alone.

During my first week as social media manager at Texas State University (@TXST) I opened my laptop to take a look at my listening dashboard and almost had a heart attack when I saw a post from an account called @TXSTstudents.

Hearing the word “research” may elicit a groan from people—some perceive it as over-thinking a topic or too time consuming. However, the right type and amount of research allows individuals and organizations to make decisions that can save money (by preventing investment in dead-end solutions) or increase revenue (by allocating resources to make the most impact).